


Craving

by hannibalsbattlebot



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Child Death (Non-Graphic), Drug Abuse, Drug Use, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Character Death, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Content, death mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-07 20:36:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12240207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannibalsbattlebot/pseuds/hannibalsbattlebot
Summary: "You realize those candidates thought we were having an affair. Why didn't we?""You were already having an affair."This fic assumes that the affair Hannibal was already having was with Donald Sutcliffe. It explores a possible past which may have lead to them working together to deceive Will Graham about his encephalitis.Donald Sutcliffe and Hannibal Lecter meet in medical school and have a long tangled relationship which leads them to the scene in Sutcliffe's office in Buffet FroidFor hannibalcreative's #eat the rare event





	1. The 1980's

**1988**

 

Donald shuffled the papers into his bag slowly, letting the rest of the students stream around him and out of the classroom.  _ Well that's done _ , he thought. He felt a slight twinge of guilt over the lying, but less than he thought he would.

A voice broke into his thoughts and he startled slightly. He thought he was alone

“I enjoyed your presentation.”

He looked up quickly. Hannibal Lecter. The class grind. The one who always had one more question to ask and those questions often carried the barb of a challenge.

“Thank you,” Donald said tersely. He wanted to put it behind him.

His fellow student showed no sign of letting it go.

“It was very interesting,” he said.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” Donald responded. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”

“I read something similar in a recent issue of  _ Voprosy Neirokhirurgii _ ,” he said, pronouncing the name with ease. “Remarkably similar.”

With a heaviness in his gut, Donald took special note of Hannibal’s accent.  Foreign. Perhaps eastern European. Donald had lifted his presentation almost entirely, word for word, from an article in the Russian-language medical journal  _ Voprosy Neirokhirurgii _ . His grandmother, a physician, had picked it up on her travels and brought it back with her. There was little risk. It wasn’t translated into English and it wasn’t for sale in the states. What were the odds that anyone in his class would have access to a soviet publication and be able to translate it?

Donald stopped loading up his bag and looked searchingly at the other man, trying to divine his intentions from his mask-like expression. There was nothing there except a slight polite smile. Hannibal had to know Donald had plagiarized the entire presentation. He could have said nothing and just turned him in to the ethics board.

“What do you want?” Donald asked. “Are you going to turn me in?”

“For what?” Hannibal asked. “I admire your resourcefulness.”

“So you don’t think it's unfair that other people had to do their work and I stole mine?” Donald didn’t know why he was poking his fellow student like this.

“We all stand on the shoulders of giants,” Hannibal said, increasing by a fraction the slight smile on his lips. Donald wondered if he was toying with him.  “I daresay you learned more from skimming through obscure soviet journals than the others did treading over the same old ground in the Lancet.”

“The scientific rigor of the soviet journals are often suspect.”

“But you picked out the jewel of that issue. You know what you are talking about.”

“Thanks?” Donald said. He wasn’t sure where he stood with this man. Nothing that came out of his mouth was what Donald expected to hear.

“Maybe we can talk about it more over dinner?” Hannibal asked and Donald felt an unexpected warmth bloom in his chest.

“You don’t find medical talk at the dinner table to be distasteful?” he asked.

“On the contrary,” Hannibal said. “Stimulating conversation is one of the ingredients for a satisfying dinner. And what can make us relish the morsels we eat today than a knowledge that life itself is fleeting?”

“Most people would find chatting about mortality to be an appetite killer.”

Hannibal leaned in to Donald just slightly

“We aren’t most people.”

 

Donald could have just kept on lying.

He could lie to himself, if he needed to, that he felt pressure from the implicit threat the other man held over him. Fear of exposure. He could say, just to himself if he needed to, he was  _blackmailed_  into accompanying the man. But there had to be a point where plausible blackmail ended. At the door leaving the classroom, at the door of the other man’s apartment, at the foot of his bed—somewhere in there the power over Donald had nothing at all to do with fear.

Hannibal spread him out and with the same unabashed relish that he savored the wine at dinner, he licked him open and laid him bare. Donald let a man he barely knew taste his skin.

_ It's was a mistake _ , he thought as he looked down at the sleeping form. If he could convince himself of that, he could write the night off to too much wine and a young man’s experimental phase.

He spoke aloud in his car as he drove away. “It was a mistake.”  A wonderful, pleasure-filled craving-inducing mistake, but one that must not be repeated.

 

Of course there were more dinners at Hannibal’s apartment and long nights in Hannibal’s bed.

They were two consenting adults who very much enjoyed each other's company. Still it nagged at Donald that he knew he couldn’t tell his friends, all of whom took his dating of woman at face value, de facto proof--as if proof was needed--of his heterosexulaity. He had dated women in public and slept with men in private. It was an arrangement he thought he was fine with. Until Hannibal. His sculpted face and clever eyes drew Donald’s gaze like a magnet whenever they were together. Donald couldn’t stop staring at him and when they were in the same room, he was sure the people around them could sense the electric frisson between them. He forced himself to look away, heart pounding. He was afraid if word got out it would be the end of both their medical careers. Over before they began, due to the fear that they were unclean harbingers of the incurable disease sent, some said, as a punishment for people like them.

 

Donald walked around, half-awake all day, mentally pulled in two directions, and trying to do too much work on too little sleep. His grades started to suffer. One morning, he mentioned to Hannibal in passing that he didn’t know how he was going to stay awake through his classes the next day and Hannibal reached into a drawer and casually handed him an unlabeled orange bottle of uppers.

  
  


**1989-1991**

 

Donald spent more time at Hannibal’s apartment than he did his own. Hannibal’s company elevated him. Everything else diminished in importance. He regularly made excuses to get out of things when he hat the option of being with Hannibal instead. When he walked in the door to Hannibal’s apartment he was shedding a layer he didn't even know he had been wearing for all those pre-Hannibal years. His apartment was a sacred space.

He found the routines soothing. The dressing up to stay in, the food and the candles, the heady discussions about the philosophy of medicine. His friends would have laughed to see them on the nights they spent in together. He didn’t feel like exposing Hannibal to his friends. They wouldn’t understand his intensity, his depth, his passion.  His versatility in bed wasn’t a joke, it was a gift. Donald couldn’t deny the variety, the constant surprises. The first time Hannibal purred in his ear “I want you inside me” Donald was surprised and delighted to explore a whole new facet to their lovemaking. Hannibal was a constant source of novelty. And yet, Donald always got the sense that there was more.

 

Hannibal greeted Donald in the entryway to take his coat. This was part of the ritual.

“What do you have for me tonight?” Donald would ask this every night and the answer was always something different. There was always some indulgence of the senses, rarely sight or taste alone. There was something to hear or smell or taste.  

Once Hannibal wafted lilacs from his garden under Donald’s nose and asked him “What part of your brain is lighting up right now?”

And because he could smell not just the flowers, but also Hannibal’s sun-warmed skin he said “My oribitofrontal cortex is dancing right now.”

 

“What do you have for me tonight?” Donald asked, a slight tremor in his voice. This was the first day back after having stayed away from Hannibal for a few days. The last time they were together, they had had a disagreement--it hadn’t even risen to the level of a fight. Donald mentioned his conflicted thoughts about their relationship, perhaps one time too many.

“I want more,” Donald had said.

“More of what?” Hannibal said, not looking up from his plate.

“Of you. Of us.”

Hannibal set his utensils to the side of his plate and looked up. “What does that mean?” His intense stare unnerved him. 

Donald tried to shrug it off and say it was nothing, but Hannibal was cold the rest of the night.

Donald wanted more from him: more time, more commitment, but he was always too scared to ask for more. He had to take what Hannibal offered, on his terms. He was too afraid that if he asked for too much, Hannibal would stop having Donald over at all.  The few times he wasn’t available at a moment’s notice when Hannibal asked for him, he saw the flicker of cold-fire anger that passed over his face. Hannibal never said anything out loud, but his schedule suddenly filled up. He squeezed Donald out with activities Donald had never participated in with people he’d never heard mentioned. Donald knew it would be a much longer interval before he would see him again. That was his punishment. Hannibal’s mercy was that he always welcomed Donald back eventually and acted as if nothing had ever happened.

 

“What do you have for me tonight?” 

Hannibal took his fingers from the harpsichord keys and waited for a beat until the ghost of the music dissipated.

“I do have something, a couple’s activity, if you like, that I’ve been hesitant to ask you about,” Hannibal said brightly.

Which is how he brought up the idea of psilocybin.

“We’ll take it together,” Hannibal said as he brewed the mushroom tea in a clear glass teapot.

Donald looked at the brown liquid. It looked like tea, but it did not smell like tea. The bitter earthiness was heightened and any floral notes present in tea were entirely absent here. The teapot was smaller than it looked with the insert in it. Hannibal had to add more water and let it steep a second time before he had enough to fill his cup as well.

“Is it safe?” He asked after Hannibal handed him his cup.

“It is safe enough,” Hannibal said. “I’ve done this before, alone. Never with anyone else. I wanted to share this, with you.”

They sipped their tea and chatted, but somewhere along the way, Donald felt time began to dilate and telescope in strange ways. He couldn’t tell if Hannibal was as affected by the tea as he was. He didn’t know if the languid tone in his voice was a product of his or Hannibal’s intoxication.

“Tonight I'm going to teach you how I navigate a body,” Hannibal said.

Hannibal took him to bed and laid him out, clothed. Without touching him, Hannibal talked him through his own body.

"I think of the body as a series of interconnected rooms," he said.  Hannibal joined him in walking down the pathways of his bones. Donald felt like he was given a mental link to Hannibal's mind that was both frightening and exhilarating.

At some point, he stripped Donald and while his hands passed along the outside of his body Donald felt him inside as well, manifesting as a disembodied voice that traveled into every corner of his body and mind.

He had felt melded to Hannibal before, in a physical way, but not at this level. Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes. He tried to apologize for doubting and demanding change from Hannibal, but he couldn't get his tongue to comply.  _There was no need for change._  He tried to say this, but Hannibal hushed him. Fresh tears blossomed and broke free.  _Mercy_ , Donald thought.  _His forgiveness is inhuman_. He relaxed, gladly putting himself entirely at Hannibal’s mercy, trembling at the honor.

As Hannibal took him apart in his hands, Donald willingly fell to pieces, rushing to his own dissolution.

 

He was almost surprised to wake up whole and next to Hannibal in the morning.

“How did it feel?” Hannibal said, rubbing Donald’s back.

“Like I was flying and dissolving at the same time,” he said. “It was amazing.” He kissed Hannibal. “How did it feel for you?”

“Different,” he said, “but pleasurable. More so that I was with you.” He rolled over on his back, dragging Donald partially on top of him. “I enjoy your company.”

Donald chuckled lightly. Hannibal’s morning erection, now pressed between them indicated he was underselling his feelings. Donald moved his hips, slightly grinding up against him.

“Why don’t you move in with me?” Hannibal said. “Officially.”

 

Now they spent every evening together and many of their nights were heightened by the cocktails of drugs Hannibal mixed up for them. After a few months, Hannibal stopped taking the drugs altogether. The pretense that they were doing this together, as a bonding act or shared learning experience was quickly discarded. Hannibal kept a ledger of what Donald took in what quantities, and detailed what the outcomes and they side effects were.

Donald didn’t mind.

The way Hannibal looked at him, head cocked like a curious bird, constantly asking him how he was feeling was like being in the spotlight of his radiant attention. Donald could feel it like sunlight on his skin. In the moment, he wouldn’t change a thing. While on mushrooms it was like an offering. He was being laid out in the temple and fucked by a god.

The day after was another matter. Each time Donald came down, and the pounding in his head reminded him of the inevitable damage he was doing to his brain, he would swear that this was the last time. He first dreaded and then eagerly awaited the next time Hannibal came to him with a pill or a syringe. He was addicted, not to the drugs but to the experiences with Hannibal. The  times they found themselves together in the apartment to spend together were like pieces of hard-won heaven and Donald would do anything to keep it.


	2. The 1990's

**1994**

 

“I don't believe in the hippocratic oath.”

Hannibal liked to start conversations like this: a bold declaration which he could then chase into nuance with the question-and-answer interaction with his audience.

“You don’t?” Donald responded. He tried to keep every trace of incredulity out of his voice.

"Do no harm? It's unrealistic. We do harm all the time. Every medication has a side effect. Surgery is incredibly traumatic. Even psychiatry, the soft science that it is, needs to dig up pain in order to root it out."

"But the patient is better for it in the end."

"Ah, but that isn't an absolute, is it? We are asked to balance the pain inflicted against the benefit gained.”

"I think you are arguing semantics,” Donald said. “It is understood by physicians as a whole that we should do no  _ net _ harm. We harm, but in the end our patients are, hopefully, better than when they started.”

“What if the treatment doesn’t work.”

“I think in that case, intentions count.”

"What if it is in the patient's best interest for them to die?”

Donald frowned. "We shouldn't be the one to make that decision, Hannibal.”

"We physicians are called on to make decisions like that all the time. I killed a man once.” Hannibal looked down at his hands as he folded them over each other. “I made a decision to try a procedure that, had it worked, would have saved his life. It didn't and he died.”

They had never talked about it before. Donald wondered how long ago this was and why they didn’t talk about it when it happened. It pained him to think that Hannibal suffered with this guilt alone. Donald walked over to where Hannibal sat and crouched down to meet his eyes. He put his hand on Hannibal’s knee.

"It wasn't your fault,” Donald said.

"So said all my colleagues, but they would have congratulated me on my skill had he lived. We need to own up to our responsibility.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Hannibal. You didn’t want him to die.”

Although he put on a brave front, brushing off Donald’s concern, that night in bed he was clingy. He wanted to be held. He put his head on Donald’s chest and Donald couldn’t see his face.

“Tell me about it,” he whispered into Hannibal’s ear. “Tell me what’s wrong.” 

He heard nothing for so long, he assumed Hannibal had gone to sleep. He was half asleep himself when Hannibal spoke again.

“It was only wrong because it was an accident,” he said. “That is my regret. I failed at bringing about what I intended to do. I intended to save him.  I don’t have reservations about facilitating death for the deserving. His death, I regret.”

Donald wasn’t sure what to say and held on to Hannibal tighter.

 

**1995**

 

He nicked an artery and the field began to fill with blood. He called for suction. The child was smaller than she should have been for her age, so impaired by her many diseases. He had tried to talk her parents out of this surgery in the first place, afraid that it would become the mess it was turning out to be. Donald could feel the countdown in his bones. Seconds lost was brain cells lost. He could fix it, but it would be a band-aid on a bigger problem. Just as he had predicted she would come out from surgery worse than when she went in. He put down the suture and picked up the scalpel again. The nurse shot him a quick confused look.

“I’m having trouble reattaching this. I’m going to neaten up this edge here. Can you get another clamp ready for me?” In the moment she turned, he made a small nick in another artery, and then went to work neatening up the ragged edge of the artery that was still gushing blood. He calmly sewed the first artery closed, as the other cut slowly and steadily leaked blood. By the time he “found” the nick he had made, it was too late.

 

“How did it feel when she died?” Hannibal asked him that night.

“It didn’t feel good,” Donald said. “but it didn’t feel bad either. I felt like I had done a distasteful job but that the job needed to be done.” He shook his head. “I played God, but it didn’t make me feel powerful. I felt nothing.”

Donald looked at Hannibal’s face after his admission. His expression was inscrutable.

 

**1997**

 

"Where does the true man live?" Hannibal asked. "Take my hand or foot and I am still myself. Cut off my head and I die, but what is it about the brain? You’ve seen it. Gray, unimpressive mush."

They were eating veal sweetbreads with Madeira and mushrooms. Hannibal had spent the afternoon cleaning and soaking the sweetbreads, which gave him time to marinate on one of his philosophical tangents. They had barely unfolded their napkins before Hannibal started.

“Where does the seat of the soul reside? Surely not in the brain? In the heart? More picturesque than biologically accurate, surely.”

“I'm just surprised you believe in souls,” Donald said.

“I’m not convinced everyone has one,” he replied back. “If that makes you feel better.”

"You aren't going to find the answers in neurology. There's a lot we don't know about how the brain works," It was trite, but accurate. “Neurology tells us about the plumbing, but not the soul or even the mind. A diseased brain affects the mind--and the soul if you want to believe in such things--but you are looking for answers from a neurologist when you should be looking to a philosopher or theologian."

Donald thought he would see disgust in Hannibal's face at the suggestion, but he looked pleased.

He didn't say anything else about it. That alone should have made Donald suspicious.

He would find out soon enough that Hannibal’s version of exploring the divine was pharmaceutical.

 

Several days, and some negotiating later, Hannibal presented Donald with the mushrooms. They were a different type, Hannibal said, known for inducing visions some claimed as prophecy.

“You mean hallucinations,” Donald said.

Hannibal ignored him and set the bowl in front of him.

"Where's the tea?"

"These you eat."

The mushrooms were soggy and unappetizing, sitting in a small pool of the brownish liquid they were rehydrated in.

"I didn't want to cook them or add any seasoning," Hannibal said looking at the visually unimpressive contents of the bowl.

"Do I eat all of this? It looks like a lot. Are you partaking?”

"I could only get enough for one this time,” Hannibal said. “One of should be sober the first time. For safety.”

“There must be a dozen mushrooms here.”

“If we split the serving, there might not be enough for either of us to feel an effect. It would be a waste.”

The mushroom were bitter and the taste lingered in Donald’s mouth.

Donald ate them all, asking for a glass of water to wash down the last gritty dregs of the soak water.

Hannibal edged a bright yellow bucket over with his foot. "You will be sick. It is what they were used for, to purge sickness out of the body. It was the outsiders who sought the hallucinations and altered states as a pathway to a higher consciousness. They are very rare,” Hannibal said, with a smile as if he expected to be thanked for the trouble he went through. “They have several names, most commonly these are called The-Little-Ones that Spring Forth, but some call them the Flesh of God.”

As promised, first came to vomiting and then the intense hallucinations. Donald felt weak and shaky from the purge but also euphoric. He felt like everything else had been a flat imitation and only now he was seeing the world in every dimension, painted in every hidden color. It didn't matter if he had his eyes opened or closed, the visions came to him either way. There were abstract geometric patterns that he could see, feel, smell, and taste and there were objects that were so concrete and so real looking, that he reached out to touch them, only to have his hand swim through empty air.  He was unmoored in physical space. The roof peeled away and the room he was in opened like a flower and he was hurled into the sky. He passed through the inky blackness of space, but instead of it feeling like an empty void it felt thick and viscous. Instead of feeling the air sucked out of his lungs by the vacuum, his mouth and lungs were filled with something thicker than air or even water, an oily sludge that filled him and started to course through his veins, pushing out and displacing his breath, then his blood and finally every cell of his body until he was gone. Donald Sutcliffe was no more, invaded by and then dissipated into the endless murky void.

Donald came back to his senses swaddled in a blanket, in bed, being held in Hannibal’s arms. He felt shaky and exhausted, but like the entire interior of his body had been scrubbed and flushed out with bleach and water.

“You’ve come back to me,” Hannibal said, brushing Donald’s hair out of his eyes.

“How long has it been?”

“Many hours.”

"What did it look like from the outside?"

"I saw you reaching for things that weren't there. You told me you could see the fingerprints of God in the universe. You were laying down in the ridges of his fingerprints. Then you said you could see the evil in the world like a black oil-shimmering skin with creatures thrashing below like eels that you could sense but not see.” He held up a the straw of a drinking glass to Donald’s lips and he took a sip of water gratefully. His stomach cramped once and was still. “It was very poetic. You seemed enraptured. Are there any lasting effects of your epiphany?"

Donald took another sip before he spoke. "I'm coming close to losing my faith, Hannibal. If someone with a neurotypical brain can experience that, I have no faith in the brain as a structure. Wash it in the right chemicals and it will show you things that are realer than reality. How can I trust my own brain, never mind the patients who come to me?" He passed his hand over his face. "Hearing voices? I tasted voices. If that's God, then God is insanity."

Hannibal was nodding. Donald pushed away from him, tried to regain his feet, but couldn’t. His legs wouldn’t support him.

"This is the last time, Hannibal,” he said in a small voice. “No more drugs. I'm afraid of what it's doing to my brain.”

He turned towards Hannibal, but couldn’t look him in the eyes. Hannibal could argue him down and he was bracing for the first salvo.

“I understand,” Hannibal said. 

Donald let him ease him back into bed.

 

**1999**

Donald came home and hung up his coat. He didn’t call out “What do you have for me today?” They had long since stopped doing that.

Hannibal must have heard him from the kitchen, because he came to greet Donald, touched him on the arm and kissed him on the cheek.

“We have a guest,” he said. “Come.” 

Sitting on the couch was a slight young man who looked like hell. He was drawn and pale. His dark hair needed a haircut. His sneakers were held together with electrical tape, and not in a fashionable way. He wasn't grunge, he was just dirty. Donald could see a cotton ball taped to the inside crease of his left arm.

“Donald, this is Brendan. Brendan, this is Donald,” Hannibal said, drifting over to the drink cart. “Brenden came into the ER with heroin withdrawal a few days ago. Would you like a drink Donald?”

“No thank you,” he said settling into a chair opposite their guest and eyeing him warily.

“Brendan is going to stay with us for a little while. I’m tapering him off heroin in a safe, sensible way. This is care he won't get in the hospital.”

Donald had a million questions, none of which he could ask with Brendan sitting across from him.

“Won’t your parents be worried about you?” he asked trying to keep the archness out of his voice.

“They gave up trying to worry about me a long time ago.” When he spoke, Brendan’s voice was surprisingly deep, scratchy in a way that spoke of cigarettes and frequent illnesses.

“Brendan is 23,” Hannibal said. “Perfectly capable of making his own life decisions.”

“And you chose to come here.”

“I know this treatment is experimental,” Brendan said. “But I’m willing to try it. I’m willing to try anything.”

“They were going to discharge him from the hospital right into the streets. There were no treatment beds available and he couldn’t stay any longer.”

"I'm ready," Brendan said, slapping his hands down on his thighs. "I'm ready to get clean. Dr. Lecter was the only doctor in that hospital who gave a shit about me."

“Well, we’re happy to have you with us tonight. Hannibal, can I see you in the kitchen for a moment?”

Whatever Hannibal was cooking smelled lovely, but Donald was not distracted. He was too angry to be swayed by his stomach.

“That was very rude, Donald,” Hannibal said.

“I don’t care if he knows we’re talking about him. We wouldn’t have to have this conversation now if we had this, or _any_ conversation about Brendan earlier!”

“I thought he had a few more days in the hospital. I invented an infection, but it “cleared up” sooner than I had anticipated.”

“He's a child!”

“He's 23.”

“He says. Because heroin addicts never lie. Did you card him?”

Hannibal let a long exasperated breath out of his nose. “I saw his file.”

“Do you have a heroin withdrawal plan?”

“Of course.”

“What is it?”

“I told you. Careful tapering with other medications as needed to control withdrawal symptoms coupled with a nutrition and exercise routine.”  He walked over to the stove, lifted a lid from a pot and gave the contents a stir. “Therapy has already begun.” The lid went back down. “Trust me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I know that it is stated in canon that Hannibal gave up surgery after killing his patient, but in this fic he goes on as a surgeon a little longer. You can chalk that up to a delayed reaction, or just a lie on Hannibal’s part. Maybe there was no dead patient at all and he just liked to tell this story. Hannibal isn't the most reliable narrator.


	3. The 2000's

**2000**

 

Bits of Brendan’s history came out little by little as he continued his “therapy” with Hannibal. Hannibal told Donald that Brendan was a high school drop-out who got into drugs while he was "finding himself." Donald raised an eyebrow at the implication of that phrase.

Donald waited first with dread and then with eagerness to come home and find the house ransacked and Brendan disappeared with as many valuables as he could carry. Donald started actively hoping for this, thinking that maybe this would teach Hannibal a lesson. But weeks went by and Brendan only made himself more at home.

Donald was never fully at ease with him. He felt like that they lived parallel but separate lives, each with his unique relationship with Hannibal. Hannibal was vague with details about Brendan's "therapy" and Donald couldn't help but wonder what he told Brendan about their relationship. He and Brendan rarely spoke directly, but he didn’t dislike Brendan. He was smart and friendly. He helped around the house, expressing his gratitude for Hannibal’s help in getting his life back together.

If Donald was wary of Brendan, Hannibal didn’t seem to have any reservations. Donald couldn’t deny that Brendan bloomed under Hannibal’s care.  After getting him to put on healthy weight, Hannibal said his next step was to work on Brendan's creativity and focus.

One night, Donald came home to find the house filled with Brendan's harpsichord playing. Hannibal knew, but wanted it to be a surprise for Donald, that Brendan was an accomplished musician who lost his scholarship when he started getting heavily into drugs and his grades slipped. The normally smiling Brendan swayed on the bench with a slack mouth and hooded eyes, fingers moving briskly. His dark hair moved in time with the music he made. Later Donald would find that Brendan played violin even better than the harpsichord.

After that, Hannibal encouraged Brendan’s return to the arts. Brendan was off heroin, but Hannibal was still giving him other drugs. Brendan drank mushroom tea and took up the paintbrush again. He made portraits of the three of them, surreal things in acid green and a clotted blood red.

When he stayed up all night composing music instead of sleeping, Hannibal gave him an injection and tucked him into bed. Morning cereal came with a clutch of mixed pills in the bottom of a teacup. Brendan didn’t balk at anything he was handed--even LSD, which Donald, fearful of the possible lasting effects, had refused to consider.

Hannibal didn't tell Donald when he dosed Brendan and with what. He wanted Donald's unbiased opinion. Donald knew it was always possibility but it still took him by surprise to look up over the dinner table and see Brendan's pupils wide and know he wasn't with them anymore. It could come on that suddenly.

 

Brendan stood up from the theramin, the eery music ceasing abrubtly.

“I’m hungry,” He announced.

“Dinner is almost ready,” Hannibal said, without looking up from his book.

Brendan left the room and returned with a dish of chocolate mousse. Hannibal closed the book on his knee, his finger marking his place.

“That’s for dessert tonight.”

“I’m hungry. I’m eating it now.”

He set it on his knees held his hands over it, like he held his hands over the theremin. Then he lightly trailed his finger through it. He sucked his finger and then went back for more, scooping it—mousse, whipped cream, red raspberry sauce—with his fingers, tasting each element separately and then together. Unselfconsciously he closed his eyes and moaned when the sweetness hit his tongue again and again. Donald knew he was staring openly, but he couldn't help it. It was impossible to ignore the near-erotic display as his tongue darted between his spread fingers and chased a dripping trail of red sauce down his wrist and arm.

Hannibal stood. Donald braced himself. Hannibal was slow to anger, but he could be vicious when finally stirred. Hannibal used one finger under Brendan's face to tip his face up and get his attention. He made sure he had eye contact before he spoke.

“You are taking what you want,” he said. “How does that feel?”

“It's the best feeling in the world,” he said.

Hannibal beamed at him, and then left him alone to finish his dessert.

 

That night, Hannibal tried to initiate sex, but Donald put him off. He could help thinking about Brendan and he was afraid that Hannibal was thinking about him too.

 

  **2001**

 

They didn’t get many unexpected visitors, so when the doorbell rang, Donald motioned for Brendan to stay seated and cautiously went to answer it himself. Hannibal was away, or he would have let him answer it.

A young man stood there, hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans.

“Can I help you?” Donald asked.

“Yeah. Uh.” He cleared his throat. “This may sound weird, but is my brother here? Brendan. His name is Brendan and I thought I saw him come in this house. He’s been missing for months.”

Donald could see the family resemblance.

“Yes,” he said. “We do have a young man named Brendan here, receiving treatment.”

The young man let out a breath. Joy filled his face.

“Can I talk to him?”

Donald retreated a half-step and closed the door a fraction.

“That isn’t a good idea,” Donald said. “He needs to focus on his recovery.”

“Yeah. Totally. I get that. I just want to know he’s okay.” The young man took a half-step forward and looked like he would try to dart inside if Donald closed the door any further.

“He is okay," Donald said. "You have my word.”

“Yeah. Okay. I know. But I just want to see him. I want him to tell me he’s okay.”

“Right now, he’s at a very delicate point. He’s working through some issues that lead him down the path of addiction,” Donald said. “He doesn’t want to have contact with his family at this time.”

“He’s only 19,” the young man said. “He’s just a kid.”

“We hope to return him to you soon, clean and whole.”  With that he shut the door in the young man’s face.

Donald and Brendan sat together in the music room, ignoring the ringing doorbell and the pounding on the door until it stopped.

 

Donald had come home tired from a double shift at the hospital and he could tell that something was wrong with Brendan. He was agitated, pacing and bouncing on the balls of his feet, muttering about something.

“Brendan, are you okay?”

He finally registered Donald’s presence.

“Oh. Hello, Don," Brendan said and then sucker-punched him in the stomach.

Donald yelled in surprise and pain and dropped to the floor immediately, clutching his stomach. Hannibal had heard him yell and appeared, as if out of nowhere and restrained Brendan with a simple hand on his chest.

“He punched me,” Donald gasped. “That hopped up little fucker punched me!”

“Brendan, is this true?”

“You said I should act on my instincts” he said. “You said I needed to let it out. My instincts told me to beat the shit out of this asshole.” He turned to Donald. “I don’t like you. I’ve never liked you. Why don’t you just leave and let Hannibal treat me in peace.”

“Brendan, please remove yourself from the situation.”

“He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, you understand? And if you try to get in between us there is more of that coming, you cocksucker.”

He shoved Hannibal’s arm away from him and growled but he did leave. He knocked something off the wall as he walked down the hallway. They could hear the glass shatter.

Donald, crumpled on the floor, was just getting his breath back.

“I can’t live like this.” He yelled, his eyes screwed shut in pain.

"You shouldn't have to," Hannibal said. “I’ll discontinue Brendan’s treatment.”

“Do whatever you want with Brendan. I won’t be here to see it.”

Hannibal helped him to his feet.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes,” he said and it was like it was torn from him.  “I do mean that.” He had tears in his eyes that were beginning to spill. “I don’t know what you are doing with Brendan.”

“I’m helping him.”

“Helping him? He’s deranged, violent and borderline obsessed with you.”

“He is learning how to feel again. Drink and drugs have muted his emotions for years. Without that crutch, he’s feeling them now, but he’s not sure how to handle the violence of his own emotions. He’s like a toddler who bites and kicks when he is frustrated and like a toddler he will grow out of it.”

Donald took a shaky step back.

“What are you getting out of this? I can’t believe this altruistic side of you.”

“I was curious to see how a highly creative and imaginative mind would react to various pharmaceuticals. Hasn’t it been fascinating for you to watch? From a purely scientific view?”

“I can’t just put aside that he’s still a person.”

“I’m monitoring his condition very carefully. I can let you see the ledgers if you like.”

Donald shook his head and wished he didn’t. The nausea swelled and ebbed away slowly.

"His brother came by the other day. Hannibal, he's only 19."

"What did you say?"

"I told him Brendan was fine and he didn't want to talk to them right now."

"You told him Brendan was here."

"He already knew. He followed him. That's not the point." Donald took a shaky breath. "He's a kid and his family misses him. It made me see that he is a person. You are doing this for your own amusement. Like it's a hobby. Instead of building bird houses you take in junkies and see what happens if you isolate them and feed them drugs.  Look what it's doing to him. You can’t do that. He’s a person. But you treat him like a little project.”

“I am helping him be his best self.”

“By whose standards?”

“His own. With my guidance.”

“Am I like Brendan?” the knowledge broke on him like a wave.  The mushroom tea, the Flesh of God. The alternating punishment and reward of Hannibal’s moods. “Am I one of your little projects?”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Donald.”

Donald looked around the room. Although this house had been their home from the time it was purchased, everything Donald laid eyes on was Hannibal’s. Donald told Hannibal he didn’t care about decorating. Hannibal had smiled and told him not to worry, he would take care of it all. Now he could see he had been squeezed out. Nothing here reflected his personality. He wasn’t even sure what that would look like. He had hooked up with Hannibal when he was young and lost. He was still “finding himself” and Hannibal found him, an unformed lump desperate for love, feeling out of place with his peers. Donald remembered their first night together and how Hannibal seemed to be everything he ever needed or wanted.

“I think we need a break from each other. I can’t think when I’m here.” The air was thick.

Hannibal just barely moved an eyebrow, indicating amusement.

“Where would you go?”

 

**2003**

 

“You’ve never been to Geneva.”

Donald was startled by the immediacy of Hannibal’s presence, even over the phone. Having him speak in his ear was almost like having him in the room and his pulse sped up in response.

“Come with me. It’s only for the weekend.”

 Donald said yes. Of course he said yes. He packed quickly and told Angie that a colleague had invited him to his cabin for the weekend.

“Have fun,” she said.

 

He had been dry-mouthed nervous on the flight over. He didn’t know what they would talk about. There turned out to be little talking. He was speechless anyway, seeing Hannibal again. 

“You have a beard,” Hannibal said, amused, and Donald wasn't sure if he was looking at his face or his wedding ring.

After being outside all day skiing, they threw off their ski suits and warmed their cold skin together in front of the fireplace. The first night they didn’t make it to the bed and slept in front of the fireplace naked as animals.

 

“I’ve known you for twenty years, but I’m still not sure how well I even know you,” Donald said “You have these walls around you. What’s behind them?”

“I put up walls for my own protection,” Hannibal said, the light crease in his forehead indicating his wounded distress. “I’ve told you--

“About Misha. How you lost your sister. But you never gave me any details. It always felt like you were explaining yourself to me in the way you wanted me to see you. I was never involved in your pain. I always felt powerless to help you and I wondered why. It was you. You held me back.”

“You got tired of trying and gave up.”

“Getting to someone shouldn’t be an obstacle course.” Donald sighed. “I decided to respect your privacy, but maybe that was the wrong thing to do.”

 

They didn’t talk about Angie or who, if anyone, Hannibal was seeing. They parted at the airport with a kiss that felt like a goodbye.

 

**2007**

Donald heard his unmistakable voice above the crowd. He wasn’t being loud. Donald was just attuned to it always. For him, Hannibal’s voice cut through the murmuring of the crowd like a flute solo in an orchestra.

It was the cocktail hour for the attendees of the conference. It was called “Of The Mind” and was an effort to get different physicians who worked with the brain in some way—neurologists, neurosurgeons and psychiatrists—to work together. He wasn’t expecting to see Hannibal here, but there he was.

Donald was already walking up to him before he even had the thought that he had a choice.

Hannibal was talking in a small knot of people. He glanced at Donald for the briefest moment before turning his attention back to his audience. Donald appreciated this view, seeing Hannibal from the outside, all gloss and well-oiled charm. Hannibal had aged, but he wore his years like glory. When Hannibal finished what he was saying, he excused himself with a courtly but brisk nod,

“Donald,” he said, putting his hand on Donald’s back, leading him away from the small group. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here. Did you go into neurosurgery?”

“I am a psychiatrist now,” he said.

“You gave up surgery altogether? You were never as happy as when you were elbow-deep in someone’s guts. You mean to tell me you gave all that up?”

“I was beguiled by the mind. The ghost in the machine. Without the ghost, the body is just meat.” He smiled. “Now I’m elbow deep in other’s people’s brain matter and I manage to keep my hands clean.”

Donald leaned back a little as if seeing him for the first time.

“This shouldn’t surprise me…”

“But still it does.”

“If you are a psychiatrist and I’m a neurologist does that make us friends or enemies?”

He felt a shock of pleasure as Hannibal’s other hand dropped on his forearm and squeezed. “Donald, we are friends, of course.”

 They chatted easily and caught each other up on their lives. They kept it professional, talking mostly about their practices, swapping some stories about interesting cases they had. When the crowd moved into the banquet hall for the opening speeches and the dinner, they moved in the opposite direction, into the relative cozy peace of the hallway. They didn’t stop walking and were at the elevators when Hannibal invited Donald up to his room.

 What happened in the room was no surprise. Hannibal brought his own wine to the conference and he poured a glass for himself and Donald.

“I missed you,” Donald said.

“I missed you as well.”

Donald initiated the first kiss, but Hannibal returned his ardor in equal measure. He undressed himself and then Donald. By the time he was totally stripped, Donald felt the need of Hannibal’s hands on him like a physical craving.

“Please, Hannibal, fuck me,” he said.

They hadn’t been much for dirty talk in the old days, but Hannibal responded by handling Donald roughly. With the most perfunctory preparation he thrust into him. Donald gasped but pulled him closer. Hannibal was being rough with him but it was what he needed. He didn't think he could stand his tenderness right now. Their fucking was raw and animalistic. After emptying himself into Donald, Hannibal brought Donald to orgasm with his mouth, shamelessly making obscene slurping sounds around his cock. When they were done, sweaty and spent, they dozed next to each other, spread open as far as they could on the king hotel bed without touching each other. Donald slept and when he woke, Hannibal handed him a plate with a fan of cured meat and some pickled vegetables on it. He had brought his own food, too, and china. They made open faced sandwiches with the meat and small rounds of good dark bread and ate them in bed, naked, with their hands.

 

The next morning, there was a knock at the door. Hannibal emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in a bathrobe, to answer it.

“I’m sorry to bother you.” It was a female voice. “It's about the candidates we talked about? These forms have to be in today. Actually, they were due Friday and they are already late. I hope you don’t mind that your secretary told me where to find you.”

“And you drove them all the way here this early? Please, come in.”

She uttered a small “oh” of surprise when she saw Donald sitting on the bed. He was buttoning up yesterday’s shirt. His feet were bare and his hair was still wet from his shower. He was sure it was obvious he had spent the night. The lube was still out on the nightstand. He wanted to sweep it into a drawer, but knew that would just call attention to it.

She was a tiny woman, wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, her masses of dark wavy hair pulled up into a ponytail.

 _She had put a lot of effort into looking casual_ , Donald thought.

"I'm sorry to show up this early," she said.

 _No you aren't_ , thought Donald. _You are just sorry he already had company_. Donald swallowed hard. He didn't know where this sudden jealousy was coming from.

“Donald, this is Alana Bloom. She’s been helping me with the PhD candidates. Keeping me in line when I forget the paperwork. Alana, this is Donald, my lover.”

Alana and Donald met each other’s gaze with the same wide-eyed expression of awkward and restrained surprise.

“Don't look so surprised, Alana,” Hannibal said. “It was just the other day we were discussing the variety in human sexual expression.”

“I thought we were talking theoreticals.”

“What good is theory if you can't occasionally put it into practice?”

Hannibal walked over to the kitchenette and started to rattle pans around. Alana and Donald stole glances at each other.

“I was just about to fix us some breakfast," Hannibal said from the kitchenette. "Are you staying, Alana?”

“No. I can’t. I’m super busy today,” she said, smoothing a hand over her hair.

“I'll be home tonight,” Hannibal said, emerging from the kitchenette once more. “Why don’t you come over for dinner. I have a new batch of my home-brewed beer that is about ready and I would love to have your professional opinion on it.”

“Professional? Is that your way of saying I drink a lot?” Her smile--more of a smirk--brought a clever beauty to her face. She was a pretty young woman with smooth skin and striking blue eyes. She had a blush rising in her cheeks.

“You have a discerning palate. I look forward to your honest critique of my work.”

She hesitated, looked over at Donald, unsure of how to navigate this ground. She spread the stacks of papers on the table. "I have a lot of work to do,” she said.

“Oh yes,” Hannibal said. “Show me where to sign.”

Donald shook the trailing edge of the sheet until he found his socks.

“I should go,” Alana said once all the papers were signed. With a little more bustling, and a promise to see Hannibal for dinner, she left.

“I should go too,” Donald said once the door fully closed behind her.

Hannibal came out of the kitchenette holding a spatula and a pan of scrambled eggs. “Before breakfast?”

“Yeah. I….This was a mistake. You’re introducing me to people as your lover now? I'm married. I have a wife and a kid."

“They weren’t an obstacle to you last night,” Hannibal said.

 _That’s not fair_ , Donald thought. _As if I could ever resist_.

“I love Angie and my son,” Donald said, “but you know I would leave them both if you asked me to. So I’m asking you not to. I’m asking you to let me go.”

Hannibal sat next to Donald and brushed his cheek with the back of his hand.

“You’ve always been free to go.” He leaned forward and kissed Donald lightly, as gently as he could be. Donald couldn’t tell when his lips were just brushing his or when it was his breath. Before he could think, Donald was parting Hannibal’s bathrobe. He had the irresistible urge to bury his face in the thicket of his chest. His skin smelled clean and lightly perfumed from his shower and it was impossible soft against his mouth as Donald kissed a path down. Hannibal groaned and leaned back as Donald's lips wrapped around his cock.

Last night had a desperate, sordid edge to it, but this was gentle and almost somber. Hannibal’s hands settled in Donald’s hair. Not pulling, but stroking.  The feel of those delicate fingers on his scalp, brushing the back of his neck, made Donald hard. He pulled away long enough to take off his clothes, afraid he would come untouched and ruin the only thing he had to wear. He enjoyed having Hannibal in his mouth. He always had. He had done this once while Hannibal played the harpsichord and he counted each missed note as a success.

Hannibal came with a sound more like a sigh. His fingers tensed and relaxed. Donald crawled up into bed next to him. Hannibal peppered his face and neck with kisses. Hannibal was relaxed and gave no indication of protest when Donald’s lubed finger circled his hole. He shifted, giving Donald better access. Heedless of breakfast going cold on the stove and the conference presentations they were missing, they acted as if they had all the time in the world. Donald took his time opening Hannibal up with one and then two fingers. Hannibal sighed again when Donald penetrated him. Donald held him close and rocked into him. He was surrounded by Hannibal, as enveloped as he could ever be. He made his movements small. He wanted to last. He wanted this to last. This feeling of having Hannibal all to himself, each engrossed in the other and the rest of the world didn’t matter. It was fleeting, but while that bubble existed it was so sweet. After he came he slipped out of Hannibal’s body, but it was he who felt the loss as if something had been withdrawn from him.

He buried his face in the crook of Hannibal's neck. _I love you_. He wanted to say it. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he knew he would never hear it back.


	4. 2010's

**2011**

 

It was the name that caught Donald’s attention. 

 

> **Top 10 Unsolved Maryland Mysteries!**
> 
>   1. **The Disappearance of the Hill Brothers**
> 

> 
> _ Brenden Hill had more than his share of trouble in his short life. What started out promising--a full scholarship to study music--turned into every parent's worse nightmare. At the age of 19 he was a hard-core heroin user and college drop-out living on the streets of Baltimore and estranged from his family. Stories like Brenden’s are sadly common. What isn’t common is when one of the straight-laced family members goes looking for their loved one and they disappear, too. _
> 
> _ After Brenden’s 22 year-old brother Zachary hadn’t heard from Brenden in a few months, not even to try to borrow money, he became concerned. Zachary spent his days and sometimes nights combing the streets and following leads. Family doubted Zachary would find Brenden, and urged his to give up when his own health was beginning to fail. He refused, and according to a phone call he made to his mother, he ultimatly succeeded in finding his brother. _
> 
> _ As Zachary told his mother in a breathless phone call, he actually saw Brenden on the street one day in broad daylight.  He said Brenden looked healthy, but his eyes were glazed and he was obviously “on something.” Amazingly, Brenden claimed that he was clean of heroin, that he had taken part in an experimental study to help people kick their drug habits. He claimed he was under the care of doctors. When Zachary expressed skepticism about this, Brenden offered to bring him to the clinic so his doctor could explain the process. Zachary called his mother and told her this over the phone. She begged Zachary to bring Brenden home and not go anywhere with him, but Zachary said he had no choice since his brother refused to go with him without permission from his “doctor.” He got off the phone with his mother in a hurry saying Brenden “gave him the slip,” but that he had a good idea where the clinic was located. Presumably, Zachary went off  to find this "clinic," but no one will ever know for that sure, because after that night, neither man was heard from again. _
> 
> _ So what happened to the Hill brothers? Did Brenden somehow pull his brother down into his world of drugs and delusion? Or was there really a “doctor” out there who knows what happened to them?  No local hospitals had any new drug programs at the time. One theory is that this drug therapy was experimental and off the books. It could be that Brenden had a bad reaction to the therapy  and died and Zachary was killed to silence him. Perhaps it was something as easily explained as a drug deal gone bad with Zachary as an innocent bystander. Or perhaps there was a mad scientist roaming the streets of Baltimore, picking up young men, promising them solutions to their addiction and then making them disappear without a trace. If there is such a person, no trace of him, or of the Hill brothers has ever been found. _

 

Donald read the story twice through, then clicked on each of the embedded links, including a picture of “Brenden” Hill. Despite the misspelling of the first name, once he saw the picture, Donald knew. He could see the shadow of the Brendan he knew lurking behind the squeaky clean kid in this school portrait. There was something haunted and desperate in the eyes. Donald felt a chill. He could almost accept Brendan’s disappearance. He was an addict. Things happen. If Brendan alone disappeared it would be easy to explain.But what about “straight-laced” Zachary, the young man who had showed up on their doorstep, who had gone to meet Brendan’s doctor and was never heard from again. Was Zachary one of Hannibal’s little projects, too?

 

**2013**

 

“Donald?”

His caught his breath in a way that he hoped wasn’t audible. “Yes?” Then. “Speaking.”

“I have a patient for you. A unique case you might be interested in.”

He pulled the notepad on his desk closer.

“Okay. What’s their name?”

“I’ll bring him to you.”

Donald recapped his pen and smiled. “That’ll work.”

 

The saltiness of the Iberico burst in his mouth. The texture of the cured flesh was silky. The fat melted and spread over his tongue, first shielding it from the flavor of the meat and then, melting in the heat of his mouth, laying the flavor evenly over his tongue.  He had taken too much of a mouthful, hoping to give himself time to think before he spoke. He wasn’t hungry for it.  He tried to talk to Hannibal about his new project, but there was something he was holding back. Reticence. Perhaps he was feeling out Donald, unsure of where they stood with each other. 

He had been pleased to be invited to Hannibal’s house for dinner. It was not the house they had shared, but a new one that was imposing from the street. Donald could see that whatever restraint Hannibal used in decorating their old house was now gone. The walls of the dining room were cobalt, and the light didn’t reach into the corners. The plants on the wall managed to look ominous in the gloom. He felt they were looming over him as he ate. Given free reign, Hannibal made his house disquieting and dark. Donald thought he must have been restraining himself in their old home, arranging it as he did, to make use of the natural light that Donald loved to read by. Maybe that is what Donald brought to their home the first time: not something that was there, but the absence of something. It made Donald sad to think that had been his contribution. 

Donald had not seen the bedroom and he wouldn’t. At the end of the night, Hannibal walked him to the front door. Hannibal wished his a good night, a safe drive and closed the door firmly behind him.

 Something had changed. After all these years Donald couldn’t understand it. The carnal cord between them had finally been cut. He had what he always wanted: to be free. This was freedom, of a kind. He still could crook a finger and have Donald at his side.

That night, lying in bed he thought of his new patient, Will Graham. His sweet face, his heated brain. Donald had looked up into that face and lied to him. Told him everything was fine. This was a dangerous thing to believe around Hannibal, but he had led him down that path. 

_ Opportunity _ \--Hannibal said he smelled it on Donald. Opportunity for what? Will Graham was an FBI profiler with an uncanny knack for getting into the mind of monsters. Why was Hannibal playing games and risking this man’s life? Curiosity had been a driving force for Hannibal, not for him. His driving force had been pleasing Hannibal. What he was doing now? He didn’t see the payoff, not if Hannibal was going to walk him to the door at the end of the night.

 

He clicked over to the MRI results on his monitor. Graham was bad and getting worse. Hannibal’s prize pig was losing his mind. How long before Graham disappeared and then, anyone who dared come around asking what happened to him? 

What if--Donald gripped the hand rests of his office chair--what if Will Graham was in his right mind again? Would he have the good sense to get out from Hannibal’s influence when he could? Would he see with clarity? Then things could go back to the way they were before Hannibal’s little project.

There was a sound at the door. Donald looked up, pleased. The office staff was gone. Will Graham was in the MRI machine. They were alone.

“Is it raining?’ he asked Hannibal.

“Not yet.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said.  “I want to talk to you about Graham—Do you want to take that off? It can’t be comfortable.”

“It is surprisingly easy to wear.”

Donald shrugged. Only Hannibal would wear a full-body raincoat that simultaneously protected and showed off his outfit regardless of the fact it make him look like a slip-covered sofa. In his later years, it appeared Hannibal’s vanity was slipping into eccentric absurdity. Donald indulged his bruised ego with a moment of pity for the man.

“Graham is bad and getting worse,” Donald said. “I don’t know how far I want to push this experiment. I think we should pull the plug now. We need to put out this fire.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary yet,” Hannibal said. He perched on the arm of the couch in Donald’s office. “Why the sudden change of heart? We’ve barely started.”

“I’m worried about my patient,” Donald said, folding his hands. “And I can’t help wondering why you aren’t. From a practical position if he dies, we can never publish anything about this. The negligence would be phenomenal.”

“He won’t die,” Hannibal said. “I don’t smell death on him. Not yet.”

“Ah yes. Your sensitive nose." There was no graceful way to segue into what he wanted to say. "Do you know who Graham sort of reminds me of? Brendan. Do you remember him?” While he spoke, Donald rearranged his desk, making sure everything was in its place: pen, letter opener, stapler, scissors. Hannibal watched the movements. “That kid you helped get off drugs. They even look a little alike. Slender and scruffy. I guess you have a weakness for scruffy lost strays, huh?” Hannibal looked stiff and uncomfortable in his plastic suit.  “Whatever happened to Brendan? Does he keep in touch?”

“I haven’t heard from him lately.”

“I worried about him for a long time. The stuff we did to him, all the drugs he took. I was afraid he would be impaired for the rest of his life.”

“Brendan suffered no long-term neurological damage.”

“So he went on to have a full and normal life? Never touched drugs again?”

Hannibal looked bored with the conversation. “I have not heard from him lately, Donald.”

There was a silence. A stalemate between them. It was Donald who broke first.

"Graham could die. Soon, if we done intervene. He will not get better on his own. Don’t you care about him at all?”

Hannibal’s face was grave.

“I care about him. Very deeply.”

“This isn’t good for him.”

“You don’t know what is good for Will Graham. I do.”

"I won’t do this again.”

“Do what, Donald?”

"Stand idly by while your curiosity harms people."

“Aren’t you curious, Donald?” Hannibal looked off into the middle distance. "He's exceptional. I want to see what he can do when pushed to extremes, past what he considers his limits. His mind works in a way that I have never seen before. I had grown despondent, seeing the banal mediocrity of the minds around me. Not just in my practice but in my colleagues as well. I had despaired of ever finding someone else..." He stopped. "Someone with such a gift."

 

Donald shook his head. “If you push him too hard he will break.”

“Yes,” Hannibal said, lip raising to show the jagged teeth. Their points had not dulled with time. Hannibal wiped the smile from his face.  “Let us not be too hasty to rush into judgement without all the information. Do you have Will Graham’s MRI results?”

“Right here. This is real time. He’s going through the machine right now and I can see he’s getting worse.”

“May I?”

Donald moved his chair and adjusted the monitor so that Hannibal would be able to see the screen if he stood right behind him.

Hannibal leaned over Donald and braced one gloved hand on the top of his desk.


End file.
